


Xmas Day

by luvliv2004



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Caretaking, Christmas, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Pregnant Dan Howell, Pregnant Harry Styles, Sad, larry freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24960871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvliv2004/pseuds/luvliv2004
Summary: Dan's life is forever changed when his plan to have a child at the same time as his best friend Harry goes awry. The community Dan finds in his newlywed husband Phil along with Harry and his partner Louis is what gets him through his roughest holiday yet.
Relationships: Dan Howell & Phil Lester, Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Kudos: 10





	Xmas Day

**Author's Note:**

> This story may be triggering to those who are sensitive to blood and miscarriage/infertility stories. It's also stupid sad.
> 
> I've been thinking of adding more to the story: the befores, afters, and in-betweens. Let me know in the comments if that sounds interesting.

Phil fought against the bitter, winter winds that carried the first few snowflakes of the season as he walked to the bakery on Talbot street. Even though it hadn’t been an optimal time to leave the flat given the dynamic weather, Phil gladly ventured out into the city for his husband. Dan's depression ebbed and flowed, rearing its head even when Phil couldn't see why. Whenever Phil noticed him slipping again, he made sure to step up.

This time, Phil knew exactly why Dan felt the way he did, and Phil wasn’t far off from feeling that way _himself. ___

____

____

That morning when they woke up, the same metallic smell that first presented itself less than 24 hours before caught Phil’s attention. For a second, he questioned if he had imagined the scent; like the demons that had cursed the couple still lingered to torment them. The sweet smell of the viola plant Harry had gifted them the day before grounded him in reality and confirmed for Phil that he was not hallucinating the morbid odor. In that moment, Phil’s imagination wouldn't have allowed for any joy.

The sight of the flowers managed to bring him amusement for a split second as he remembered Dan and Harry’s inside joke about being pansies. While the potted plant Dan received was not a pansy bush, as Phil had pointed out after Dan opened the bag with the similar plant inside, Harry’s gesture still made everyone at their tiny Christmas party laugh.

“I’m sorry, Phil,” Dan said as he stroked the flat flower petals, “not everyone took a semester of horticulture at uni.”

Harry chuckled, wrapping his arm around his boyfriend. Louis returned the embrace, letting his hand settle on the 6-month-old bump in Harry’s figure. “Lou said that this plant is the benchmark for childcare. If you can keep these flowers alive, you two will make excellent parents!”

All four of them erupted in laughter.

“Pansy would make an ironically beautiful name for a girl,” Phil could still hear Dan say. “What do you reckon?”

Phil thought it was an adorable name, but his opinion proved useless.

“Dan,” Phil whispered as he sat up in their bed and pulled back the sheets. He exposed himself and Dan to the cold air, trying to wake him up as gently as possible. Phil’s eyes met Dan’s curled spine. His striped nightshirt stopped covering his back where his boxers straddled his hips. The spot on the white sheet where Dan had made contact with at some point in the night had absorbed the puddle of blood he left behind.

“Dan!” Phil called as he leaned over to rub his back. “Baby, you’ve bled through your pants.”

“I know,” Dan said, voice dry like splintering wood. He hadn’t bothered to move. Just thirty minutes before, he had found a comfortable position to lay in. He feared that if he compromised it, the cramps would start again.

“Sweetie!” Phil cooed, resting his head beside Dan’s. He wrapped his arm around Dan and rested his hand on the same spot on Dan’s stomach he had been resting it every night since they found out he was pregnant again. 

Dan nudged Phil away, uncomfortable with how insensitive his hands had been. 

“If that happens again, wake me up. I’m here to help,” Phil offered.

Dan inhaled a mucousy breath as he shook his head. “I was in a lot of pain around midnight, so I went to the toilet to uh… drain myself.” Dan hated speaking about himself when he was injured. He was the shy type, forced into silence by his insecurities that told him everyone would hate him if he complained as often as he ought to. “I felt something fall out of me.”

“Uh-huh.” 

“Something solid. Solid and hard.” Dan squealed in fright as the image reappeared in his head. “It was an arm!” he cried.

“They told you not to look at what comes out!” Phil scolded, mindful of his tone. While he wasn't sure that Dan hadn't imagined what he saw, he couldn't discredit the possibility entirely.

“If it were happening to you, you would look!” 

Phil nodded, appreciating that the doctors weren’t always right. That the suggestions the professionals gave Dan the night before in the E&A might not have been one-size-fits-all.

“I knew we should have started trying sooner,” Dan muttered. 

“Don’t blame yourself,” Phil said.

“How can I not? This was my job. My job alone! This has happened twice, now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not working. I’m not working!”

Dan’s cynicism hurt Phil to his core. It killed him to know that Dan could take a natural accident so personally. “What do you need?” Phil asked.

Dan needed his HCG levels to dissipate. He needed to feel normal again. He needed a few more days before his stomach deflated and he didn’t appear pregnant anymore. He knew it would hurt all over again when his body forfeited the only corporal reminder of their baby he had left. Dan needed to be held. He needed to be left alone. He needed his babies, alive and healthy. But Dan couldn’t have any of that in that instant, so he settled for the next best thing.

“Can you get me one of those fruit strudels from the bakery across from the barber?” Dan asked.

Phil chuckled. “I can, but are you sure you want to be eating that? Didn't the doctors say—”

“I know what I can handle,” Dan said, clearing his nose. “Can you please get me one?” 

The doctors had recommended that Dan waited until he stopped bleeding to begin eating carbohydrates again to prevent unnecessary pain caused by bloating. They had also told Dan to avoid pineapple, papaya, liver, and potatoes to prevent another miscarriage, but look where that advice got him.

Phil nodded. “Of course,” he said as he leaned over to kiss the side of Dan’s face before he stood to get dressed. “Call me if you need anything else,” Phil offered on his way out.

Once Dan heard the front door close, he let out the tears he had been holding in all night. 

Christmas morning, Dan remembered the message on his phone from his tracking app. “Congratulations! Today, you begin your second trimester. Your baby is the size of a lemon.” He felt like reaching the second trimester was the greatest present he could have ever received, having not made it the last time.

He also remembered the tension in his muscles when he finally got out of bed and started moving. That in combination with the dark brown blood on his toilet roll that morning would have freaked him out if he hadn’t already been told by his doctor that he had subchorionic hemorrhaging. The soreness, Dan attributed to all the shifting and growing happening inside of him. Dan didn’t let himself worry as he went about his day, not bothering to complain to Phil.

With Phil’s help, Dan cleaned their flat in preparation for the gathering they were hosting later that night. They prepared a small chicken along with an array of side dishes that were sure to please. Just before Harry and Louis arrived, Dan Facetimed his parents to wish them a happy Christmas, and his mother begged to see his bump throughout their entire conversation. Dan finally obliged, and asked Phil to hold his phone for him as he stood a few feet away and posed for her.

“Are you taking screenshots?” Dan yelled when he heard the sound of a camera clicking on his mother’s end.

“I had to, Love, since you won’t take pictures of yourself,” she defended.

“Mrs. Howell, will you send those to me?” Phil asked.

Dan shook his head and ran to grab his phone back. “That’s enough,” he said. “Goodbye mum! Love you!”

“Bye-bye Daniel,” she said. “I am so proud of you!”

Dan knew his mother’s pride came from her witnessing his evolution. She knew how isolated he felt as a kid. That little check-in proved to her that he was the happiest he had ever been in his life. She was proud because Dan had finally softened up to the idea of making her a nan.

Even as Dan laid, suffering in his bed the morning of the 26th, he could still laugh at the way he developed his sudden need for a child. He felt so young and impressionable again when he formed that pact with Harry back in May. It was the desperate, laughable, “I’ll start trying if you start,” pact that best friends made before they knew better. If Dan was going to make that pact with anyone, it was going to be Harry. His date to the secret queer prom held in a teen night club in Watford. His emergency contact at every job he had before Phil. The best man at his wedding.

Dan knew going into his marriage that Phil wanted children, and while he hadn’t totally ruled out the possibility, he had never welcomed the thought with hospitality; not until Harry made the proposal one drunken night while Phil was away.

“Think about it!” Harry said, beaming with enthusiasm. “I’ll have a little Larry, and you’ll have a little… Phan? Would that be the name?”

Dan cringed. “That sounds slightly disturbing.”

“No, you’re just being closed-minded. My time is running out! Anyone who’s ever tried to have babies after age 29 in my family needs fertility treatment, and then there’s this whole process with the NHS, and we don’t have the money for—“

“Then you go ahead and have a baby! Have fun with that,” Dan said into his glass of vodka. 

“But, Danny!” Harry said, leaning in to hold Dan’s hands. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you, Harry,” Dan said as he stared into Harry’s eyes. He found the warmest, most infectious optimism in his friend’s irises.

“I want my kid to grow up alongside someone else, so they can have what we have!”

Dan couldn’t spoil Harry’s joy with a one-liner like he would have done any other day. The more he thought about it, the more the idea grew on him. “I guess,” he said quietly, not wanting Harry to feel like he had won, “I can talk to Phil about it.”

The greatest joy arose in Dan the first time he gave Phil a gift box tied shut with a ribbon. When Phil opened it and found a yellow dummy inside, he lost his composure, and cried hot tears of joy. 

“Thank you!” Phil cheered as he pulled Dan in for a hug. 

The second time around, Phil was just as happy at the news of Dan’s pregnancy; maybe even more so, having gained a richer perspective into the fragility of life after their first loss. That second time around, Phil wanted to feel everything that Dan felt. If Dan was sick, Phil wanted to be right there beside him to clean up his mess. If Dan was fatigued, Phil would take time out of his day to nap with him. When Dan felt the first flutter of movement, Phil wanted to be there with his hand pressed against Dan’s skin. 

Dan knew that Phil had been searching for that sense of union as Phil held him once they moved their Christmas dinner party over to the sofa. After they finished eating, the four turned on a cheesy Hallmark movie. Phil managed to lift up the bottom of the wool jumper Dan had worn to hide his 13-week-old belly. Phil saw no need for the modest illusion as he rubbed Dan’s softness, but he knew the oversized garb was Dan’s way of protecting himself from his expectations.

In that moment, surrounded by his friends, in the arms of the man he loved most, Dan felt complete. It didn’t seem like anything could take that fulfillment away from him until the tension in his abdomen became undeniable pain. Sharp, sporadic pain, like the adolescent aches he got in his developing ribs that made him feel like he was having a heart attack when he breathed. Like the familiar wringing sensation he had felt just 17 weeks before. He didn’t dare tell Phil that he needed him to keep massaging.

As the film played on, the pain traveled down his legs and stimulated every nerve in his pelvis. He felt a tug in his throat as his sweat glands activated under his arms. In his back. Between his legs. He knew that the affected areas of his clothes had turned a shade darker from the moisture.

When Phil took away his hand to rest, Dan’s spine caved.

“Aw,” Harry said, pointing at Dan as he sprung tears that Harry suspected were the result of Dan’s hormones. “The acting in this movie is so bad that it’s making Danny cry!” 

Louis and Phil chuckled until they noticed Dan's tremor.

“Are you okay?” Phil asked.

Dan shook his head, unable to hide his worry. “Phil, I think—” Dan said, sputtering out a heap of tears, “I think it’s happening again.” 

Those words managed to haunt Phil, blocking him from sleep and stalking him as he crossed the street. The words clawed at his ears as he entered the bakery and searched through the refrigerator display case. Among rows of eclairs, pies, Danishes, tiramisu, and coconut cakes, Phil failed to find a single strudel. He peered into the boxes’ plastic windows to make sure he hadn’t missed what he was looking for.

“Hello,” Phil called to the shop worker behind the front counter. “Do you have any fruit strudels in the back?”

The teenage employee peered into the kitchen to check her co-worker’s progress. “Yesterday, with the holiday, we got cleaned out of the fruit strudels, so we’ve made some more this morning. It looks like the dough just came out of the oven, if you wanted to wait for them to cool off so they can be assembled.”

Phil nodded. “How long will that take?”

“Just thirty minutes. If we frost them now, the cream will melt.”

“Alright. I’ll wait.” 

“Cheers,” the employee said as Phil took a seat at the table in the back of the cramped shop.

Once situated at the table, Phil reached into his pocket for his phone to let Dan know that he would be gone for a while. Part of him knew that Dan would enjoy their time apart; the silence of their flat. The lack of judging eyes. Phil wanted to tell Dan that contrary to what he believed, not everyone was that cruel. That anyone with half a heart would spare him of their judgement if they had seen him the night before like Phil had.

“I think it’s happening again,” Dan cried.

“You—What?” Phil asked, reaching for Dan’s hand. “No!”

Dan’s face contorted in pain as he nodded. "This is what it felt like last time." 

“Sunflower!” Harry wept from the other side of the sofa. “Are you bleeding?”

Dan shrugged as he passed a pair of fingers over the wet portion of his dark-colored trousers. A look of sheer panic arrested his face when he lifted his fingers and saw them covered in wispy stripes of bright red. The metallic smell of blood filled the air and sent everyone into mania. Louis jumped to pause the television as Harry stood to comfort his friend. 

“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” Phil asked Dan.

Dan shook his head. “We can just go,” he wailed in defeat.

“Okay,” Phil repeated to himself as he stood and ran about the flat, collecting a phone charger and a full change of clothes for Dan; the things they wished they had brought with them the first time around. 

In Phil’s absence, Harry took his spot on the couch beside Dan, hugging him and rubbing his aching back as he sobbed into his shoulder. “I know,” Harry assured, “I know it hurts."

Dan shook his head. “How could you possibly fucking know? You still have your baby!”

“I do,” Harry said, “but that doesn’t stop me from knowing how much this meant to you. I know you, Dan.”

“Just go home! I can’t do this right now. We’re going to be leaving in a minute any—”

“I’m not leaving you!” Harry yelled as he grabbed Dan’s head and pressed it to his chest. There, he held Dan until Phil returned from his bedroom with a hospital bag, packed and ready to go.

“Do you need help getting up?” Phil asked as he stood over Dan.

Dan nodded as he reached for Phil’s hands that gripped him gently and raised him from the sofa. As Dan got to his feet and turned to follow Phil, the large puddle on the seat of Dan’s trousers became visible to Harry and Louis. At the sight of the blood, Harry let out a frightful yelp that caught everyone’s attention.

“What?” Dan asked, turning back around in terror.

Harry raised his finger to point at Dan, and Phil ran to check his back side. In attempts to prevent Dan from seeing the gore, Phil grabbed Dan and pressed his body against Dan’s and began walking him over to the door.

“What is it?” Dan asked, struggling to break Phil’s grip.

“Harry, Louis, would you mind turning the lights off when you leave?” Phil asked as he opened the door.

“What is going on?” Dan finally managed to free himself and rested his hands on his legs, feeling the coldness of his own blood infect the fabric of his trousers. The sight of his entire hand colored red made him weak. 

He gasped at the sudden feeling of numbness in his hands and feet that brought him to his knees. As he laid on the floor, trapped between veils of consciousness, he had never felt more close to death.

The next thing Dan remembered was the light of the hospital above him as he laid in his A&E bed.

“Dan?” Phil called once he noticed him open his eyes. 

Dan groaned as he sat up comfortably. “How long was I out?” 

“An hour,” Phil estimated.

“Have we lost it?” Dan asked.

Phil shrugged. “They gave you a scan, but they need a doctor to interpret the results.

Dan nodded, suddenly becoming tearful. “What else did they say?”

“They—” Phil stopped himself, wondering if he should share the truth or spare Dan from getting his hopes up. He settled on the truth. “They told me that miscarriages are extraordinarily rare in the second trimester.” He didn’t need to tell Dan about how he failed to hear a heartbeat on the monitor when the technician examined him or how the probe they had inserted into him came out completely covered in blood. 

The facts barely comforted Dan, who knew better than to trust statistics. He knew that what his body was telling him was far more accurate than any number the doctors pulled from their textbooks.

25 minutes later, a doctor entered their room with the jaunt he could only manage at the beginning of his 12-hour shift. Phil let the doctor's gentle smile put them at ease.

"Hello, Daniel," the doctor greeted as he shook Dan's hand. "My name is Dr. Moore. I have the results of your scan." 

Dan nodded, refusing to speak until he knew what was going on.

“Mr. Howell, it would seem that you’re experiencing what we call a missed miscarriage. That means that your body is in its 13th week of pregnancy, but baby stopped growing much sooner than that. The embryo measures about 7 weeks old, by my estimate,” he explained.

“Stopped growing?” Dan asked. “What do you mean it stopped growing?”

“I mean that for reasons we cannot pin to anything in particular, the embryo stopped receiving nutrients via the placenta, and in turn, stopped growing.”

“It’s dead?”

“It is dead,” the doctor confirmed.

At the sound of those words, Dan fell apart once more; the same way he had done when he lost their first baby.

For the second time in his life, Dan allowed himself to naturally expel his pregnancy rather than having the tissue removal procedure, and while Phil knew he could physically handle it, he still hated that Dan had to go through it again.

The thought that the bleeding was still happening while Phil was away as he waited in the bakery unsettled him, but the thought of returning to the flat with the pastry that he knew would cheer Dan up made the wait well worth it. As the thought of comforting Dan filled Phil’s mind, he heard his phone chirp in his pocket.

“Hey, Lou!” he greeted after he scrambled to answer the call.

“Phil! How are you and Dan?”

Phil sighed. “We’re not too great, actually. Dan’s body’s still getting rid of everything. It’s quite horrific.”

“My god! I couldn’t imagine. I was just calling to apologize for Harry’s outburst last night. He was just really scared by the blood. I actually had to stay up with him all night calming him down, because he thought it was going to happen to him, and it was this big, terrible mess. You know how pregnancy goes; emotions up and down, and—point is, we are both so sorry for making the experience that much worse.”

Phil shook his head. “No! There’s no need for an apology! Harry is Dan’s best friend, and I know he’d never do anything to hurt him. If anything, I should be apologizing for the way Dan spoke to Harry last night. That was no way to treat his mate.”

“We’ll call it even then!” Louis said, rendering a stiff laugh from Phil. “Well, best wishes, of course. We hope that Dan has a quick recovery.”

Phil thanked Louis before he said goodbye and hung up. Not long after he ended the phone call, the strudels were finished, and Phil stood at the register to pay. Before he handed the employee his money, he spotted a display of Hostess pastries in the corner of the bakery. The golden pile of individually wrapped Twinkies brought Phil back to his twenties when he and Dan still lived in Manchester. 

He remembered going to the shops with Dan and finding the American desserts in the international section of the confectioners. He remembered how excited Dan had been to try a Twinkie, and how disappointed he was when he took his first bite of the sugar bomb with its sticky cream and overly-moist sponge cake. Just before he paid for the strudel, Phil ran over to the display, and grabbed a Twinkie, hoping that Dan would laugh at the memories like he had.

After another frigid walk back to the flat, and a trip up the lift, Phil found himself at home, pastries in hand. He ran to their bedroom, grabbing Dan a fork along the way, and opened the door softly, not wanting to wake Dan in the event that he had fallen back asleep. To his delight, Dan had been awake and watching television when he entered the room. 

“Thanks a million!” Dan said, reaching out for the pastry box in Phil’s hands as he approached him in bed. 

Dan had been freshly showered and had even changed their sheets in the time that Phil was gone, and while Phil love to see that he was taking care of himself, he didn’t want Dan to over do it physically.

“Oh!” Phil groaned. “You should have told me to help you with the bed spread before I left.”

Dan shook his head as he opened the box and saw the fruit strudel waiting for him inside. “I needed to do something. Get my mind off everything.”

“You didn’t hurt yourself?” Phil asked as he plopped on the bed beside Dan.

“No!” Dan rolled his eyes. “I’m not some feeble old woman.”

Phil chuckled as he reached into his pocket to pull out the Twinkie. “Look what they had at the bakery.” he said, tossing it on the bed beside Dan.

“Oh my goodness!” Dan said, reaching for the plastic wrapper. “I remember these! They tasted like shit!” Dan managed a smile, cinched in tight by his dimples. “And you even managed to flatten it out like last time, too.”

Phil blushed as he acknowledged that the action of him jumping on the bed had squished the Twinkie flat enough for the filling to spill out both ends. “Anything for you, Dan,” he said, leaning over to kiss his husband’s cheek. “I love you so much.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [It'll Be Alright](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28077300) by [luvliv2004](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvliv2004/pseuds/luvliv2004)




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